The standard argument is that freedom of speech only applies to governments, but that's based on an outdated assumption. In human history, we've never before had individual companies like Facebook and Twitter that are so enormous and have so much control over our public speech. (2.7 billion and 330 million monthly active users, respectively.) They have become "the town square of the world", so to speak. Facebook and Twitter are not literally governments, but they're actually larger than many governments, with a larger population and more wealth than many nations. There's nothing special about governments with regard to freedom of speech except that it has always been assumed governments are the only entities with enough individual power to significantly restrict free speech. That assumption is no longer true. Indeed, the whole motivation behind this particular act of censorship is the idea that these platforms are so powerful that they can change the outcome of the election of one of the largest nations on Earth. I'm not sure I believe that, but it's clear in any case that Facebook and Twitter are not just normal "private companies". They're not little moderated discussion forums. They have effectively (unfortunately) become the public sphere.
Twitter once locked me out of my account because I made a joke about bitcoin. Their stupid "algorithms" got me. And the only reason I was able to get my account unlocked was that I personally knew a Twitter engineer. I don't trust Jack or Zuck even one tiny bit to exercise the vast power they have to silence millions of people. It's not even a question of whether I agree with the NY Post article: the story is probably bullshit. But so were the news stories about Iraq having WMD. How about suspending the NY Times account too? How about suspending every news outlet that has published a debunked story? "Anonymous sources tell us that yadda yadda."
By design, Facebook and Twitter allow everyone in the world to post anything they want. That includes lies. If they can't accept the consequences of the platform they created, then they should shut down. But as long as they exist, with the size of their user base, they are simply too big and too powerful to be allowed to restrict our freedom of speech.
Regardless of how good you believe your argument is philosophically there is no law that supposes they are limited to choosing supporting unrestricted speech or shutting down and any attempt to create such a law would in fact be a violation of their legally defined rights.
The change you desire would almost certainly require a constitutional amendment to allow the government to compel the speech of a corporation in order to protect the speech of their customers. It would be complex, challenging, hard to predict, and almost certainly impossible even if people on average agreed it was needed.
You would have an easier time forcing payment processors, cdns, hosts, not to discriminate against alternative social networks. They at least ARE infrastructure. The challenge with those alternative networks is the only content that absolutely must use it is often odious leaving such networks with little of the desirable often uncontroversional content produced by the rest of the population of users and lots of the bullcrap nobody else wanted.
For example technically voat is more "free" than reddit but a brief look at the frontpage suggests that this freedom is mostly used to be the kind of offensive jerks nobody else wants to be around.
Jack and Zuck have zero incentive to discourage anything that limits communication or discourages both sides from buying as many ads as possible.
I would go so far as to say that Trump could not have been elected without misinformation promoted on Facebook and Twitter and the net result has been a massive probably irreparable rift in our nation and will ultimately when the dust settled have aided in killing addition hundreds of thousands of people that didn't have to die.
An trivially manipulable echo chamber designed to magnify lies and hate is not a matter of minor import without clear real world consequences.
It's possible that they are apt to desire to do a little self regulation now in order to avoid a heavier hand doing it for them later. Is this a trend you see reversing soon?
> It's possible that they are apt to desire to do a little self regulation now in order to avoid a heavier hand doing it for them later.
Whose heavy hand do you mean? It appears to me that the 2 major parties have very different ideas about what Facebook and Twitter should and shouldn't do.
>The standard argument is that freedom of speech only applies to governments, but that's based on an outdated assumption.
>There's nothing special about governments with regard to freedom of speech except that it has always been assumed governments are the only entities with enough individual power to significantly restrict free speech.
The difference is that Twitter can't put you in prison and it can't seize your property. The government can. It's an extraordinary power wielded exclusively by the government.
Consider this: If you think Twitter should be restrained from censoring their platform because the extent of their power is on par with the government, who will enforce any violations of that restraint?
> The difference is that Twitter can't put you in prison and it can't seize your property.
I specifically said I was talking about freedom of speech. There are many different kinds of freedom, and these aren't specifically free speech issues.
The power to imprison and seize property is the core free speech issue. If the government can't enforce the law by putting you in prison or seizing your property, the entire issue is moot.
> The power to imprison and seize property is the core free speech issue.
There are more ways to control participation in public discourse than imprisonment and seizures of printing presses. Times have moved on. Instead of imprisonment, we have banning and filtering, with no independent oversight or appeal process. Twitter, Facebook, and a few other companies can do more to restrict the spread of certain information than most governments in the world have ever been able, so why shouldn't at least the same standard apply to them?
Their virtual town squares are nowadays larger than any square ever under government control, and they have absolute control over who can and cannot participate. They are the absolute monarchies of 21st century, more powerful than ever.
The freedom of speech means that government can't prosecute you for having an opinion. It doesn't require anyone too listen to you. It also only applies to the government.
The standard argument is that freedom of speech only applies to governments, but that's based on an outdated assumption. In human history, we've never before had individual companies like Facebook and Twitter that are so enormous and have so much control over our public speech. (2.7 billion and 330 million monthly active users, respectively.) They have become "the town square of the world", so to speak. Facebook and Twitter are not literally governments, but they're actually larger than many governments, with a larger population and more wealth than many nations. There's nothing special about governments with regard to freedom of speech except that it has always been assumed governments are the only entities with enough individual power to significantly restrict free speech. That assumption is no longer true. Indeed, the whole motivation behind this particular act of censorship is the idea that these platforms are so powerful that they can change the outcome of the election of one of the largest nations on Earth. I'm not sure I believe that, but it's clear in any case that Facebook and Twitter are not just normal "private companies". They're not little moderated discussion forums. They have effectively (unfortunately) become the public sphere.
Twitter once locked me out of my account because I made a joke about bitcoin. Their stupid "algorithms" got me. And the only reason I was able to get my account unlocked was that I personally knew a Twitter engineer. I don't trust Jack or Zuck even one tiny bit to exercise the vast power they have to silence millions of people. It's not even a question of whether I agree with the NY Post article: the story is probably bullshit. But so were the news stories about Iraq having WMD. How about suspending the NY Times account too? How about suspending every news outlet that has published a debunked story? "Anonymous sources tell us that yadda yadda."
By design, Facebook and Twitter allow everyone in the world to post anything they want. That includes lies. If they can't accept the consequences of the platform they created, then they should shut down. But as long as they exist, with the size of their user base, they are simply too big and too powerful to be allowed to restrict our freedom of speech.